Waiting 20 Years For The Right Car: Would You Do It?

I think anyone who has ever even dabbled in modifying or building a car knows that you need at least some amount of patience in order to get things done properly. And often, your patience is required from the get go. From the moment you’ve chosen the car – or indeed the moment the car chose you – you begin a long and arduous journey that only other car folk will ever understand or appreciate.

20 years ago, Matt Donnelly from Northern Ireland knew exactly the car he wanted to build and own one day: a California-Look Volkswagen Karmann Ghia in silver and with a red leather interior. It had to be left-hand drive too, as a right-hand drive car would, in his opinion, fall short of the Cal-Look he required.

Just what exactly is the Cal-Look? I’ll let my friend Stephen Brooks show you in this short documentary he put together called Older N’ Faster. It’s definitely worth the 12 minutes or so of your time.

For two decades Matt waited for just the right car to come along, before it reached a point where he would have known that he had no choice but to build his own. In late 2013, Matt came across a front damaged ’72 Karmann Ghia which had originally been imported from San Bruno in California. Well, you’re not going to get much more authentic than that for a base to build your Cal-Look car.

The car was the wrong colour, had no engine, no wheels and a black interior. Other than that though, it was the perfect base for Matt to put a 20-year wait behind him and finally build the car of his dreams.

Today, one of the most striking aspects is the custom silver colour that Matt created and applied himself. Where most metallic silvers have a certain amount of, er, metallic and glitter under direct light, Matt’s hue almost turns a flat pale shade. It is an exquisite colour that’s incredibly hard to capture accurately in either words or photographs.

The show-stopping part of the car however lives in the rear.

With no original engine to work with, it was the perfect opportunity for Matt to install his dream setup – that being a 2,161cc stroker motor with a raised case, twin Dell’Orto 40s and an external oil cooler. To quote Matt himself, “We just made everything bigger.” The result is a power figure of around 130hp.

To achieve the desired rake associated with the Cal-Look, the rear was lowered with torsion bars and the front was narrowed and dropped. Connecting the car to the road are a set of Porsche fitment 15-inch Fuchs-style wheels.

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